1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to musical ornamental carousels and more particularly, to a miniature musical ornamental carousel which upon being actuated is capable of emitting pleasant musical sounds from an internally concealed musical box while at the same time permitting several ornamental articles like wooden horses to rotate around a central support post performing up-and-down movements to the music and having a dynamic ornamental effect.
2. Prior Art
Until now, there are many kinds of articles that can be used as desk top movable decoration articles or Christmas decoration articles, to cite a few examples these articles include a lantern adorned with a revolving circle of paper horses and with light and music, a small decoration article swingable in a swing, a small drum beating and wind instrument playing doll. These known movable decoration articles perform only a simple return action or rotating movement. Because in these movable decoration articles the action is different and also the design is different, their constructions therefore vary from each other.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,386 to Hou et al., there is disclosed a Christmas musical decoration article of a small merry-go-round apparatus having a base stand with a concealed miniature spring-tensioned musical box, a hollow central support mounted vertically on the base stand, a drive shaft located inside the central support and driven directly by the musical box mechanism, a fixed shaft fitted on the outer circumstance of the drive shaft for supporting the bearing, a ceiling plate rotatably supported on the bearing, a canopy mounted to the upper end of the drive shaft and covering the upper portion of the ceiling plate, and a plurality of ornaments of small wooden horses suspending from the lower side of the ceiling plate and driven into action by the drive shaft via the gear driven mechanism. In this apparatus because the driving force that enables several ornaments to produce up-and-down rotating movements is achieved by the energy that has been accumulated by the tensioned spring originally designed to drive of the musical box, it is necessary that the transmission path passes from the lower gear, through the vertical drive shaft, the upper gear set, and the ceiling plate to the ornaments. The path is long and the friction loss in between is also large. Consequently, the musical box mechanism is always unable to withstand the frictional load, which frequently leads to a slowdown in the speed of the music and the ornaments and the inability even to continue action within a very short period, but is frequently in need of repeated tensioning of the spring. This repeated tensioning is rather troublesome unless overcome by use of a larger music box with sufficient spring energy. Besides, in this type of construction a coaxial shaft tube and a main drive shaft must be mounted in the hollow support. Additionally, on the upper ends of the shaft tube and the support, mounting of ball bearings and related structural parts are required. Because of these and also of the ceiling plate which requires provision thereon of many pairs of vertical parallel guide rails to lead the ornaments to perform up-and-down undulating movement via a follower plate, it has thus resulted in the number structural parts becoming numerous, an increase in weight, trouble in operation of the assembly and an increase in cost, which have all been problems with the musical decoration of U.S. Pat. No. 5,078,386.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,436 to Sinclair discloses a motor-driven musical carousel structure, the drive mechanism of which, however, comprises a friction wheel located at the lower part of the lower disc, a plurality of accurate track elements and the wheels that can traverse the said track elements, and a plurality of rubber tires disposed beneath the canopy and capable of sliding on the lower disc. Such an apparatus can use a power supply to provide motor current and perform long hours of operation and it is not necessary to always tighten up the spring as in the aforesaid patent. However, the structure of several wheels and the track, the fitting and assembly also bring in a few complications and problems, and the exposure to outside of the lower drive mechanism is also a cause for concern regarding aesthetics.